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J. Kenji López-Alt

J. Kenji López-Alt is the Managing Culinary Director of Serious Eats, and author of the James Beard Award-nominated column The Food Lab, where he unravels the science of home cooking. A restaurant-trained chef and former Editor at Cook's Illustrated magazine, his first book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science is a New York Times Best-Seller, the recipient of a James Beard Award, and was named Cookbook of the Year in 2015 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

There's no "newfound" dislike. In that article I specifically mention that stuffing and bread pudding are a couple of the things that slow cookers do well:

I also quite like the uniquely moist and custard-like texture you achieve when cooking stuffing or bread pudding in a slow cooker; both are recipes that don't rely on intense browning or reduction of liquid for their flavor.

Yeah, extyended time will make meats softer. In the case of a pork chop or steak, I find it offputting (they taste mushy) but curing keeps the meat a little firmer so instead of mushy, they turn sort of buttery.

I use a trowel because it's lighter than a cast iron press which makes it more useful for me. It's great for holding down grilled cheese sandwiches or burger buns without compressing the bread, or for smashing burgers, or in this case, holding down bacon or Canadian bacon. Also, these guides are written for Serious Eats, not Anova. Anova licenses them to use on their app, but it's not exclusive and they'd exist no matter what.

If you don't enjoy sous-vide recipes, there's an easy way to avoid them: don't read the article, same as nobody will make you buy a trowel if you don't want one.

@illone

Well, french toast is similar (or in some cases even identical) to pain perdu, which is the french version, but no, the dish itself is not French. It's actually mentioned in the very first cookbook of all time by Apicius, well before France was even a country. In other places it's called variously eggy bread, or German toast, or gypsy toast, Bombay toast, etc, etc. It's a super-common dish that was popular all over medieval Europe as well. I'm not sure why we call it "French Toast" in the U.S. It's definitely not French by any stretch of history or the imagination.

I'm actually not sure if English peas are really English or not!

@Soupcon

French toast is not French (see above), if anything it's Ancient Roman, though it's probably even older than that. Ham are traditionally and still typically made from the back legs of the pig, so Canadian bacon wouldn't be called ham, though for all intents and purposes, yes, it's quite similar to a smoked ham in the same way that peameal bacon (which, incidentally, typically uses cornmeal, not peameal) is similar to ham, or British, Irish, or Canadian back bacon are also similar to ham. They're all part of the smoked/cured pork family tree. Best not to dwell too much on specifics of nomenclature because it's not all strictly defined. Just eat and enjoy.

@PixelHustler

The grease channel is pretty essential... unless you like grease fires!

Canadian bacon is like peameal bacon minus the peameal. It's cured and smoked pork loin. It's also not a myth, it's just a name. I don't think anyone really thinks Canadian bacon is Canadian any more than they think French toast is French.

Yeah, I don't see why you couldn't as long as you can connect it to the internet to get the app and sign in.

@Okcel

You need your phone to connect to the internet to sign on to the app initially, but once you have it set up with the device, then you only need a bluetooth operation to control it. At least, for the manual control. You still need an internet connection to get recipes and updates.

@TheGorramBatman

Given ChefSteps backing/runway, I wouldn't worry about that much, but to be clear, most sous vide devices are not going to last a lifetime. I'd bank on between 5-10 years of solid use before something gives way. After all, it's sophisticated circuitry in a steamy environment. Not exactly great for longevity.

I cook sous vide almost exclusively in pots or in plastic Cambro containers. I rarely use an insulated container. Low water volume is actually quite useful for single or double servings of things, especially because water is scarce and $$$ where I live in CA. You can fit a quart bag with a couple pieces of salmon under 2 inches of water in a small pot. That's convenient for me. Eggs are also great in small volumes of water.

Some folks might not find these features useful, but many will!

@Gator Pam

The Joule is the only one I know of that doesn't have manual control. The Anova I linked to in the story has manual options. I don't know of any Windows phone-friendly SV apps though.

Those links are auto generated. I've written slow cooker articles in the past mainly because people are really interested in them and like I said here, depending on situation, for some people slow cookers really are the best option. But both the chili and the meatballs (both of which were my recipes actually) come out better if cooked in a Dutch oven. For the meatblass we know this as a tested fact. With the pork I haven't tried side by side but it would be an amazing anomaly if it were the exception to the general rule.

We posted this because the video embedded at the top is brand new. The rest of the content has been updated a little bit but is largely the same. We have recently started producing a lot more video, some new content, some based on existing content. In the latter case, we embed it in the existing post and bring it back to the front for a day so that folks will see that there's something new to enjoy. Hope that explains it!

1/2 cup heavy cream brought to a simmer, stir in crumbled blue cheese (we used to use Fourme D'Ambert, but I've done it with Stilton, Roquefort, and Point Reyes Blue no prob) until creamy. About 6 ounces or so.

I tested both electric and stovetop (Kuhn Rikon) for this. With the volume of peas here there's not a big risk of clogging but we added a disclaimer and some safety tips just in case.

@creamy cheese

Once your cooker is at pressure, you should back down on the heat until it is at equilibrium (the tiniest bit of steam coming out. Sounds like you left t at overpressure during the whole cook. That's not how you'd typically use a pressure cooker! Low got medium low once it's at pressure is all it takes.

What's a "proper" pea soup? The dish I know is super, super, super simple and is essentially the non-pressure cooker version linked above. Ham, split peas, a couple aromatics, water or stock. The quality of the ham and stock obviously matter.